I noticed a smell like burning and realized why my board before freaked out. Only after I plugged in another board did I notice the power cord was rather hot.

Then to investigate the powercord, I noticed a blue spark and me saying fuck ... loudly.

So I hooked it up to the AVR to see if the board is dead.

SO I replaced the processor - no go
SO I replaced the EEPROM - no go

I emailed grant and this was my response

That sounds... excruciatingly bad. If power shorts to gnd like that, it's almost certain the AVR is fried. FT232BM probably is too. I had this happen once myself (drilled through the power cable; I'm a moron.) The good news is that the 7313s are probably fine. Replace the AVR, since it sounds like it won't flash anymore. If the USB device still enumerates, the FT232BM is probably fine; if not replace it too. Also, the small trace that connects ground to the ISP port blows like a fuse if something bad happens while the STK-500 is plugged in. If nothing was plugged in at the time, it'll be fine, but check it anyway. It runs horizontally underneath the ISP port. It'll be obvious if it blew.

You'll be getting a second e-mail from me in a second.

- Grant

The computer mounts the board but the AVR doesn't like it. This is bad. More so since I don't have a spare FT232BM. I think I'm fucked. I'm semi annoyed too cause I fried 250 dollars worth of hardware.

The leason I learned is I suck.

Fail back position is to switch the board closest to the radiator to the middle.